I’ve seen this coutless times, and as a french native I’m getting tired of this, I want to tell you that no french think of it that way.
You know how you have “eleven” “twelve” and then you switch to “xxteen” for the next 6 number ? You never dissociate them, because that’s just the way it is. French are the same “douze”, “treize”… and then suddenly “dix-sept” but nobody dissociate them, this is just one word that means “17”
And then it’s the same with “seventy”, french don’t dissociate 60 and 10 in their mind, it’s just one word. Sure from an ethymologic standpoint it comes from two word but it’s not how we think about it.
When you say “sunday” you never think “day of the sun”, when you say “blueberry”, “blackberry” you don’t think of the color, you think of the particular fruit, everybody can see the origin of the word, but nonetheless the word is one unit.
Anyway. Yes it is weird to learn a new language and see how it evolved into a weird mess, but please know that when you make this kind of comment you don’t look like you are well informed about the french language, you just look like kids that have learned a new word and can’t stop using it everywhere.
There’s only one place a French native gets this wound up about a joke. Are you Parisian?
I am not, but I’ve seen this jokes so many times online…
nah, you guys are just weird.
Uh, French is my first language and I’ve definitely thought that four-twenty-ten-seven was a weird as fuck way to say ninety-seven since I was a kid.
English: What’s that?
German: “Was ist das?”
Dutch: “Wat is dat?”
Spanish: ¿Qué es eso?
French: “qu’est-ce-que c’est ?”What. the fuck?!
French-Québec : “Kossé ça?”
French also : “C’est quoi?”
… or : “Qu’est-ce?”Word for word of "qu’est-ce-que c’est ?” …
…goes like : "What’s this that this is?
…or : “What’s this which this is?”“Qu’est-ce?” sounds like the english “Case”.
Since this is just one syllable it might be difficult to hear out of context.
Edit : Delayed 8h because of DDOS attackAlthough most French say “Qu’est-ce que c’est”, it is worthy to note that the proper/formal French is “Qu’est-ce?”. So strictly equivalent to “What is that”, word for word. :)
The other day I decided I would stop saying quatre-vingt-dix (4, 20, 10 = 90) instead I would say huit-dix-dix (8, 10, 10) or even deux-quarante-dix (2, 40, 10) and shit like that
to add some context i forgot about it an hour after
Why not use the existing septante, octante, neunante?
idk i was tired and i tought it was the funniest thing
Ask the guys in Modern times who decided that fick it we will go for the nonsensical method.
Depends where though, Belgium and Swiss use septante…
Yes, they are the sensible players in this game
- Combien pour ma commande ?
- Alooors… Une bavette de trois livres et deux-cent trois vingt et douze grammes… Ca fera deux-vingt et sept euros et deux-vingt et cinq centimes s’il vous plait.
- Tenez, voici un billet de deux-vingt et dix tout neuf !
- Et voici votre monnaie, deux-vingt et quinze centimes et un comprimé d’aspirine.
- Merci bonne journée !
- De même !
The French is the reason English is a clusterfuck of inconsistent grammar and spelling.
Well and German, and some other Latin languages, and a bit of Nordic/Slavic languages, and all the other languages whose pockets English rifled for loose vocabulary.
I love the language, honestly, I love how completely and unapologetically a clusterfuck it is, but it’s a clusterfuck.
“seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… ten… ten ten”
The “four twenties” might seems more familiar to americans by replacing “twenties” by “score” as in : " four score and seven years ago…"
I think this actually roots in the problems of conversion to base ten from base twelve. Not sure though, maybe I remembered this wrong.
Meanwhile all french speakers understand each other perfectly well.
Do English speakers mistake people saying ninety-nine (99) for them saying ninety nine (90, 9)? No? How come? It’s the same thing as in french!
Do you not have the same issue with all numbers under 70? 62 or (60, 2)? And you still have that problem for numbers in the seventies too, it just looks weirder in decimals. "Did you mean (60, 11) or 71?
Even if there is a possible silver lining, it’s still arbitrary and weird.
And in English it would be 71 or 70, 1. I’m just pointing out that this meme about french by english speakers makes no sense since it’s the same thing in english.
I think you’ve missed the point entirely if that is what you think the meme was about
